Professor David Peimer
Understanding Transylvania: Myths and Legends- Dracula and Others

Professor David Peimer - Understanding Transylvania: Myths and Legends- Dracula and Others

- So what I’m going to do is dive in today with looking at Transylvania, and specifically myths and legends, and specifically obviously the Great Dracula myth or story, if you like. And I thought, just to start with, what I want to do is just give an idea of when we talk about the word myth, what does it actually mean and how do myths actually work? And then go in a little bit into Bram Stoker, obviously, who wrote “Dracula,” some interesting things about his life actually. And then the story itself, and what I think could maybe resonate still today, and what it is other than just a sort of fun, fantasy, Gothic, horror novel, really? What could we maybe take out of it today? And in a way, I think, because I know that Trudy asked in terms of doing Romania, and then look at something a bit different from what we’ve done before of myths and legends and how an area can get so associated with a myth or a legend from a novel, from a book, from a story. I mean, it’s quite extraordinary. And we can obviously think of many other parts of the world where it’s just a piece of geography ultimately. And yet it can become imbued with mythical resonance and through the mythical imagination become imbued with so much. And in a way, we have to go back to the Greeks and then perhaps biblical times, and then other times as well. If we imagine really living amongst the Greeks and thinking of Zeus really, as the most powerful God with lightning and thunder, etc, and then all the others, Poseidon and the sea, and how this was lived and believed? And of course, through other religions, and through other works of fiction, really. So what I want to do is just start giving a bit of context so we can get a sense here. Just to remind us, because this novel is written in the late 1800s.

And at the time, this is the Austria-Hungarian Empire, this is a map from 1910. And just to remind us, there’s Austria, which we all know and we have a sense of, I think in Europe, and then there’s Hungary. And then of course Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist, it’s Bohemia, Moravia, there’s Galicia up there. And then Transylvania, which is all part of Romania. Down on the side here is Italy on the bottom left. So it’s the Austria-Hungarian Empire that it’s really all part of. And Transylvania linked to that. And this is 1910, so this is more than 20 years, just under 20 years after Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula.” So we just have to make a bit of a mind shift of the map of Europe of the time, and how he is in his own time seeing Europe in the way that we might today see parts of the world that we know and yet have changed maybe since the war or will change again, et cetera, since independence or whatever changes. So I think that map is quite important because it’s a mind map of parts of Europe and in the way that we have to almost reimagine what they were living through at the time and why a novel like this could become such a hit and could take off and still have so much impact. I mean, it’s extraordinary amongst university students that I sort of, obviously teach and know, and has been for quite a few years, and many, many others, not only myself. And the huge influence of the Gothic era and Gothic novels and fantasy and vampires and all that, is huge amongst to me. A lot of high school students, a lot of university-age students as well, and it’s fascinating. Is it a retreat to fantasy world? Is it something else that they’re attracted to?

You know, this whole thing of goth and Gothic and the Gothic horror in vampire. You know, what is it that is being, if you like, resurrected in the mythical imagination of teenagers or early university students. And so many of them want to read and want to write something that is influenced by this era or these novels. So it’s from that point of view, I think it’s quite interesting. It’s almost become a return in a way, but in an in influenced way. Maybe it’s something to do with the big anxiety of the times. So what I’m going to do is try and link it to an understanding of the late Victorian period and what I think Bram Stoker is maybe about. The one very important thing, which is that the myth of Dracula and vampires for that matter, has to be taken with a sense of irony and wit and a bit of a pinch of salt. But also, I think it’s a flexible myth. I don’t think it can be pinned to one meaning. I think there are quite a lot of possible resonant meanings to you to interpret the myth by. In the way that we can interpret the Garden of Eden myth and so many other myths, Camelot, King Arthur, Robin Hood. There are so many ways to interpret, certainly the Camelot and King Arthur stories, the Trojan Horse story. All of these are great remarkable myths stood the test of time. Did they ever happen? Didn’t it ever happen? Who knows? The odds are pretty small if they did ever happen, but they resonate for a powerful reason. Camelot, you know the round table, the knights and democracy and were 12 knights, and going to save the world from all the evil forces and the evil leaders of futile times.

And the good king versus the bad king who’s got the good wizard on his side, Merlin, of course the magician. You know, the end of a certain approach to spirituality explaining natural phenomena of wind and fire and rain and earthquakes and volcano, explaining it through a spiritualism and mystery of its time. And of course, the beginnings of the Roman influence in England and Christianity coming after that as well. So all of this can be seen as… We can see these myths capture times of great change, capture times of unpredictable forces in a way, certainly the Camelot myth. The Robin Hood one is a bit different, but if we actually go back is, was there Robin Hood? Was there a real, you know, I mean, there was a guy called Robin, yeah, et cetera. But was it anything like that? No. Was there a highwayman? Yes. The story of the underdog, helping the people, going all the way through quickly from Robin Hood to Dunkirk. You know, the word underdog in English is actually not known in many other languages. So if we think of the underdog, it comes from English culture and English language, which is fascinating to me. For example, the Ukrainian ambassador was interviewed once here on BBC and said, “There’s no word in Ukrainian language for underdog.” And on research, it comes from the English language primarily. So it’s a phenomenon which is obviously part of England or Britain and other parts of the world as well. But it leads to a strong mythical sense going way back in the culture, the underdog standing up to the big baddy, the evil, whatever the force of darkness is. We have to remember the time as well with Bram Stoker. It’s the beginning of streetlights, electricity, so many scientific changes and experiments are happening. “Frankenstein” is written 70, 75 years before by Mary Shelley.

But with the Dracula, it’s a massive change of scientific experimentation in the later 1880s of the Victorian era. Scientific experimentation and changes of perception of human nature, imperialism, going out to conquer the world, ships going out, stories coming back, battles being fought. It’s a whole different sense of adventure and conquest and open going out sense of the imperial world, in a way, that he’s part of. Scientifically, experimentally, in terms of the culture as well. And so in a sense, just to look a little bit more carefully, what are myths and for our own times? And I think it’s not by chance that movies like “Metropolis” and Kafka’s novels, and Kafka-esque the very word, have become mythical in our own times. “Animal Farm” 1984, because they capture a world not only of dictatorship, but a world of humans and machines. And the conflict of the world, humans and machines, and AI now, artificial intelligence, you know, where’s the future moving? Stephen Hawking argues that’s the most powerful, most important change is artificial intelligence greater than anything else. So the machine age and the machine-like sense of the individual, the automaton if you like, or the reduced man, as Kafka once said, the Kafka world “The Metropolis.” So of these myths of our times to replace the ancient Greek myths of Zeus, and Odysseus, and Achilles, the great heroic warrior, his only problem is his heel. And is it become machine age? What I find fascinating is that myth can have many meanings, but we can find something that we connect to in our own age that in a way through metaphor and myth tells us something about ourselves.

And it’s ultimately the way that art works. One of the most powerful myths, of course, is the creation myth. You know, the creation of any culture and religions have that, the origin of the religion. We all know beginning of Genesis where there’s Judaism or Christianity and other religions in the east and elsewhere. Every group, every society has to have a creation, an origin myth if you like. For the ancient Egyptians, Ra, the sun god, et cetera. So there needs to be an origin or creation myth, which means that myths are used to help understand and explain natural phenomena. And of course the ultimate question of why are we here, what purpose, what meaning is it? Given, of course, the inevitability of death for everyone. So it’s a way of making meaning and making sense of the world. In our post-industrial, in our scientific era, are myths just a charming legacy, which had its written infancy in Greek and ancient Greek intelligence? And the church naturally has to depreciate in order to put the Christian myths up front and other religions as well? Is it a yet, or do myths still retain some power to, if you like, infiltrate or shape our imagination, or shape our belief and understanding of the world? For Jungians, myths are original revelations of the pre-conscious psyche, original revelations of the pre-conscious psyche. Jungians will believe it’s unconscious psychic happenings which are told in mythical stories tap into them and we can understand ourselves much better. So Jungians believe that they are absolutely foundational and central to society and human belief and human systems. In the end, for me, myths are stories that make up a group’s tradition. What is tradition other than myths, other than stories which get passed around?

Stories which we believe, whether it’s Exodus and Moses, and the burning bush and the tablets and carrying those heavy tablets up and down, or the burning bush or the Red Sea or certain the holy grail of the Christian myths and many others going way back the sun god in ancient Egypt. Zeus, lightning, thunder, that’s the most powerful God? More powerful than Poseidon of the sea or the wind? You know, the Greek said nearly 2000 gods for almost everything. So myth for me are stories. The narratives which help, if you like, shape what we call tradition in a group or a culture that we belong to. Some may have factual origins, others are completely fictional, some may be, if you like, a fictional change or exaggeration of the fact. But myths are more than just stories. They explain practises, they explain beliefs or natural phenomena, and ultimately why where here on this earth. So we need stories as humans, and if that’s for me the link with theatre and literature. We need to tell stories. We are storytellers. We need to tell stories to make sense and make meaning. What happened last week, last weekend, or the wedding, or the birth of a child, or grandchild or some event. We tell it in stories, we don’t tell it just as a shopping list of facts, if you like, we tell it in the context of a story.

It’s such an innate human quality. And I think that these myths were often created, certainly the origin myths, often to which of course would involve God or God’s fantasy creatures, whatever we want to call them today. And that the myth may capture some profound truth, but it’s not necessarily historically accurate and it’s not meant to be literal. The Garden of Eden, the serpent, the apple, all those stories, Adam and Eve, the first, yeah, the rib, the rest of it, They’re fantastical stories, in the meaning of the word fantastical on the one hand, ridiculous, absurd, crazy if you like. But on the other hand, obsessive, they burn into the imagination, I think. And that we need stories to not only about the origin and creation of our cultures, but to help make meaning as we go along of our histories and our current times. Noah and the great flood, that myth of the end of an era and regeneration, the beginning of a new era. The end of the first World War, new era. The end of the second World War, new era. The flood is the myth, is the metaphor for the end and the beginning, if you like, it’s creation, destruction and creation again, it’s one of the great myths of all time, the stories and the narratives. In Greek mythology, there are so many. And what’s remarkable about the Greeks is how brilliant the word storytelling and creating stories and narratives to express so many of these insights. Just a simple one, for example, the tale of dead Alice. And Icarus’s, where the father, Daedalus, builds his son, Icarus, wings, so they can escape from the maze where they held captive.

But he says, “Icarus, fly, go fly, good wings fly, but don’t go too close to the sun, because if you do, your wings are made of wax, they’ll melt.” And of course Icarus goes too close to the sun, the wings melt, boom, crashes down to earth. So even there in the myth of the story of freedom is, whoa, just be careful. Don’t be over ambitious or full of too much pride now that you’ve conquered your prison. Don’t be too much full of hubris or pride, don’t get too close to the sun, just go high enough and then chill out. So in the best myths, I think there’s a paradox always, there’s a double meaning at least, if not more. And then of course myths can also be stories where it’s a false belief based entirely on delusion or fantasy. It’s another meaning of the word myth. Complete delusion, complete nonsense fantasy, and yet believed by a lot of people. So for me, ultimately there are stories which are created to teach us something important or meaningful ways of understanding ‘cause we need the stories. And in ancient times, of course, earthquakes and floods and illness and death and even fire to a degree going way back, many things which could not be understood, a story needed to be made up and told whichever continent one dipped on or whatever culture.

So we have all these myths and stories. And the reason I’m mentioning them all is because I think Bram Stoker is totally in touch and the era that he’s living in, and the era that he’s writing in is completely in touch with enormous amount of research and thinking going on because the British are out conquering, they’re out seeing new worlds, new lands, bringing animals, humans, peoples, enormous trade going on, enormous global discovery research, scientific, so many things happening. Massive times of change and discovery. And I think he’s part of that. The one danger of myths, I think, is that when… And Roland Barthes, the great French philosopher, he alludes to this in his book Mythologies, where myths can be presented and then become believed in an absolute sense that this is the truth. So it’s not seen as a myth or a story, it’s flipped into the realm of truth through belief, whether religious, or any other, or cultural. So it’s something which has become naturalised, in Barthes words, it becomes natural belief, it is seen as something part of human nature. And that’s when it’s dangerous. And the obvious example, the biggest example, especially as we’re moving towards Holocaust Memorial Day is the myth of the area. I mean, when it becomes naturalised and believed in such a fervent way becomes in a sense believed as natural by a culture, it becomes really dangerous. And to me it’s often allied with a certain nationalism of any kind. So myth are said in the past, it is very seldom for a myth to be in the present, they need the passage of time, past, and history. They can present themselves as true. And that’s the tricky area, the possible dangerous area. I think it’s very hard for cultures to see their belief systems and traditions as myths, totally as myths. They need to believe somewhere in at least part of it, even if it’s a part-time belief. It’s hard to step outside and say, this is all just stories, all just legends myth stories.

Somewhere there’s a need to believe. As opposed to looking at a totally different culture where one can observe with a more rational or a more cold eye. These are just mythical stories. Myths also instruct us what to do and what not to do, how to behave, and what happens if one doesn’t behave according to the dominant myths of a group. So it’s all of these things. And around the time also that Bram Stoker was writing, there’s a lot of theorising around myth and what it meant. And some theorists argued in some of the phrases that have come down that myth is simply, in their word, misremembered history, or that myth was primitive science 'cause they saw themselves as very scientific, very educated, very knowledgeable. Goodbye to all those ancient religious beliefs and all the rest of it, et cetera. And myth was just primitive science in the words of one of the great cultural thinkers at the time. Another one, his name was Muller, argued that myths are a disease of language. A phrase which has come down through studies around myth disease of language, myth is a primitive science, myth as misremembered history. These are all the phrases being used at the time that he’s writing, Bram Stoker is writing “Dracula.” And I think what becomes fascinating is that on the one hand there’s the push of the enlightenment and rational and scientific experimentation. On the other hand, there is a reaction against it. So it’s part of the enormous tension of the times of two worldviews in clash around the time. In Roland Barthes’s book mythologies, he talks about Einstein’s brain, and how that’s become a myth of our times, which captures a whole lot of possible meanings, which are fairly obvious. Soap powders in detergents. And he goes on and gives wonderful examples, red wine, the French national drink, of course linked to the holy communion and all the rest of it.

Red wine and blood, yeah, et cetera. I think the biggest danger that Barthes also talks about is when a myth becomes natural when this is the worldview and there can be no other. Whether it’s called the Arian, the master race, and there can be no other, no other is tolerated, booked, or any other is just seen as utterly inferior, et cetera. We get the extreme example in that myth. So we need to be aware of when myth functions as naturalising a belief in a culture. And how it does it, it abolishes complexity, it abolishes flexible meanings, that’s why I’m pushing Dracula as having flexible meanings. When complexity in a story “Garden of Eden,” whatever, is reduced to a simple right and wrong, goodies and baddies, it becomes simplistic, it becomes essentialist. And I think that’s when it becomes a bit dangerous. Garden of Eden, the apple, the serpent, other examples. And it becomes a… Because then it’s subject to becoming an absolute myth in the culture. And this is it, this is the truth, and this is natural truth and nothing else can be accepted. So no other explanation of the world can be accepted. And it can be from the Catholic church, it can be from any religion, it can be from a nationalism we all know of. Okay, that’s just to give a sense of the world that Bram Stoker is writing in, where there are hell of a lot of these fascinating studies around myth and stories around and exploring because so many of the myths of other cultures from Africa, from Asia, from Australia, from America, South America, they’re all coming back into Europe. And so many scholars and writers and artists are trying to understand and absorb them in their own times of great imperialistic voyages, imperialistic conquests from Britain and Europe of the times. That just to paint the overall picture that he’s writing in. And within that is a context of Transylvania.

So the myth of Transylvania, why he chooses it? It’s a mountains area of Romania, what was is called Transylvania, why he would choose that as a part, a piece of geography, and be able to imbue it and have so many people buy his book and read it and go along with it? Suspension of disbelief and just go along with… Okay, a farm, there can be a Dracula there, there can be a count, a bat becoming a vampire, sucking blood and all the rest of it. Why do they buy it? Why did he choose that area not another? And I’m trying to give this context to help us understand why. Okay, so that’s the map there that we can see. The map that he would’ve known or pretty similar. So the Austrian-Hungarian empire would’ve been pretty strong in his imagination. Bohemian, Moravia and then far out on the east of Europe, Transylvania and the mountains. And he in a sense, I think needs to go beyond the sort of well-known areas of Europe, well-known in terms of England anyway, and the kind of English upper class semi aristocratic life that he lived. And an identification of something beyond the central and Western Europe that was seen as part of, if you like, more or less equal in superiority status to England of the times. The Portuguese going out, the empire, the Spanish, the French, the German, the all of those, you know, the Norwegian, Swedish and so on, Swiss, with such ancient histories that he would’ve known. But this is something beyond, like the Romans and their sense of the barbari, Latin for barbarians as we know. It’s something out there, some other, some slightly inferior other, just on the border of the Europe, he would’ve known, he would’ve imagined. And what’s fascinating, which I’m going to come to, is that a lot of what they call invasion literature was being written. HG Wells, “The War of the Worlds” and so many other, it’s where… The fear of being invaded by the outside other was becoming evident in later Victorian times. Are the people from empire going to come in to our home country?

Are people from the fringes of Europe going to kind of come in? Are people from the fringes of other continents, get on a ship and come in? A little bit of a fear of… And the word was invasion, invasion literature, which is often used today by many states about immigrants, you know, flooding the borders and invading, and all the rest of it. And there’s the fear of the outside other. So he’s got to position that he can’t position it in France or Italy or even Greece or where’ve, he’s got to position it somewhere else the ET or the Darth Vader. In our times, it might be something from outer space, the fear of the invader from outer space or wherever, or of course in our own times, pandemic. So it’s the invading other has got to be positioned somewhere and every culture needs it. And the dark forces of the vampire, the Dracula, and for me, one of the biggest meanings of the myth is this inferior, primitive, darkly known beyond the forest, beyond the mountains, another area coming in to invade, derivative of the Hans and the Goths and all of them. Okay, that for me is the biggest ultimate myth of his times that he’s writing in. Christopher Lee, as we all know, one of the great images of Dracula, just look at that face for a second from this movie image. You know, there’s one piece of one trickle of blood, there’s a little bit of red around the lips, and of course the eyes got to be bloodshot. And that look of the one hand horror and fear, and the look of awe, and the look of conquest, it captures so much, for me it was brilliant acting and it’s acting. But there’s bewilderment, there’s astonishment, there’s hunger, greed, fear. It’s a picture of perhaps the second half, the 20th century fantastical evil image in a way. And all it needs is a drip of blood, doesn’t need splatters of blood and buckets of fake blood makeup and so on. You know, the more subtle, the better.

Let’s never forget Hitchcock and psycho only needed couple of shots of that knife behind in the shower, the great shower scene behind the curtain, don’t need more blood, that’s enough. And the eyes are crucial. We live in such a visual time, the eyes, and of course the teeth have got to be perfect, but bloodied. So I think it’s in a fantastical image of, with so many meanings, produce it to one. It’s a mythical image of a certain kind of evil and scary horror. The Boogieman who comes in the night to attack us. Okay, it’s now we move on to the kitsch and the fun. Dracula is also a count. You never forget, he’s a count, a nobleman who lives in Transylvania. He’s an upper class nobleman. So in Bram stoker’s imagination, he’s got to be like the aristocratic would’ve known, or the nobility in England he would’ve known. So he’s got to have a boat tied, he’s got to have a turn collar he is got to have a strong features and eyebrows and the strong face, and of course the two teeth reminiscent of “Jaws” or sharks or other animals. A human and a best deal quality put together, fascinating to me. And the two colours, which are the colours of fascism, the colours of evil often, and the colours of incredible richness, red and black. And I don’t need to tell everybody, but the echoes of red and black and how evocative they are visually for the human imagination, it’s extraordinary. We just look at the combination costumes and pictures and clothes of humans going way back in history. The red and the blacks, the Romans with the red, the red toga symbolising the captain in the army or the general whatever. The red coats, although that’s debatable why British army wore red, some argument that so when they were shot or stabbed, it was so far less blood and scare fewer of the other soldiers. But on the other hand, it’s red in the middle of Africa or America, wherever.

And it’s not scared, it’s not here to stay, it can be red, it can be the most visible, no camouflage, there to stay impression of power. Here’s the costume. You know, these are some of the drawings from the costumes of Draculas. And many Draculas portrayed in movies and TV series and so on. The red and the black, the colour. And Bram Stoke is influenced by the aristocracy of his time. There’s got to be something aristocratic, there’s got to be a cloak, there’s got to be these colours because he’s a count, he’s not a peasant, he’s not middle class, he is nobility Dracula, crucial. And this is the image, of course, of the red lips and the one bit of dr of blood. It’s an image, it’s fascinating. It’s linked to one of the great images that The Rolling Stones used in a whole lot of their concerts. And it’s got that echo for us in a mythical way, going all the way back to Dracula. Then here, of course, these are the images that we know. It’s got to be the coffin image there’s Dracula with the castle and so on. And with the coffin image, because obviously it’s associated with death and evil and blood thirsty and the image of the face. And again, just that little bit of blood that’s got to be shown. And then here again, “Dracula,” Bram Stoke, one of the very early versions of the book, using a picture of the possible castle. This is the possible castle that might have been where the original Vlad lived. I’m going to come to him in a moment. And the castle here, you can see is an ordinary picture of the castle. Okay, a castle of Bran in Transylvania. Bram Stoker, 1847 to 1912. His actual name was Abraham Stoker, he was an Irish author, but he tried to become as English as possible. And he writes the ultimate Gothic horror novel, “Dracula.” He was the personal assistant of one of the most famous actors in English history. Henry Irving, who was a sir, he was the business manager for Henry Irving. And he was also the business manager of the last theatre in London for 27 years which Irving, the actor owned.

So the business manager for the most famous actor of the times and the theatre, and works for near 30 years as business manager. And he spent six years researching and finding out to write his novel. And it’s from a visit to the English coastal town of Whitby that he got his inspiration for “Dracula.” When he was a university student, one of the papers that he wrote was called “Sensationalism in Fiction and Society.” “Sensationalism in Fiction and Society,” things don’t change much, students are writing on this kind of topic as we speak. “Sensationalism in Fiction and Society” was one of these better well-known essays as a student. 1878, he married a lady called Florence Balcombe, who was the daughter of a lieutenant colonel so he could go up the ladder in English society. Now she was a former suitor of Oscar Wilde 'cause of course he was Irish, Abraham Stoker and Oscar Wilde, and they were contemporaries, they knew each other. There was between friend and acquaintance. And they were, in fact, Stoker knew Wilde from their student days together, and it proposed him for the Trinity University’s Philosophical Society. Oscar Wilde was upset and crossed with him because he was seducing Florence, and he was trying to, he was not sure, et cetera. Anyway, eventually, Stoker renewed his friendship with Oscar Wilde. And after Wilde, everything, the nightmare that happened to Oscar Wilde, and he had to go to France, et cetera, after the trial, be found guilty of homosexuality, all the rest of it. And Stoker goes to visit him in France as a supportive friend. So it’s interesting that he was in friendly with Oscar Wilde and Wilde is held up as, on the one hand, this brilliant writer and genius of remarkable satires, not as comedies, but satires on English manners and English upper class. But he is absolutely savaged when he is attacked for being homosexual. And of course, he’s in prison, and then goes to France, but Stoker stuck by him.

He visited the town of Whitby, which I’m going to show in a moment in 1890. And this was part of his inspiration for the castle in “Dracula,” in the stories. He befriended a guy called Armin Vambery who was a Hungarian-Jewish writer and traveller. Now, whether this guy told him about… Obviously, there were stories about the Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Count of the 16th century from Transylvania, but did he tell me stories which really directly inspired Dracula? We don’t know. But you certainly told him stories from Transylvania, the Hungarian-Jewish writer. So 'cause you certainly told him stories we know of the Carpathian Mountains, some of this has been challenged and not discussed today’s too. So Stoker then decided and spent six years researching Eastern Europe to find locations, to get the ideas, the stories, folk tales from the area, and researching in English history and what become known for us as Gothic horror and mythological stories about vampires as well. And “Dracula,” fascinatingly, is written as completely fictional diary. It’s diary entries, it’s telegrams, it’s letters, ships logs, newspaper clippings. And that heightens for the reader that we feel we write inside the mind of the characters 'cause it reads like diaries, fictional, it’s made up, it’s nonsense but we feel we are right inside much more. And of course this was quite similar to part of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” And of course he was hugely influenced by Mary Shelley’s brilliant “Frankenstein.” Just as a piece of trivia, the original script for “Dracula” was 541 pages and it was lost, and it was found in a barn on a farm in Northwestern Pennsylvania in the early 1980s, handwritten of course.

And the title was “The Undead,” but of course he changed it much later. And it was this original type script, of the original of Stokers was bought by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. There’s a bit of trivia for all of us. Okay, and here we see, this is the first version of the book published, “Dracula” by Bram Stoker. And this is one of the very early images of the actor. It beats so many versions of “Dracula,” I’m not going to go into them 'cause I look too kitsch today, but one of the early versions, you can see it’s a count, he’s nobility, like, English nobility and European nobility. But trying to show the evil side, not the benevolent or caring side of nobility, if you like. Just to go back to this. Why Transylvania? The Carpathian Mountains I’ve mentioned. And the Romans called it beyond the forest, it was known in Latin as the land beyond the forest. So it was seen as the outsider land of barbarian savages, all the rest of it. And it was seen in Stoker’s time, Victorian era as part of Europe but beyond the forest. In other words, we’re a different kind of human species could live almost in a way. And that, as I said, right at the beginning, echoes all the way through history, how we have to demonise the other. We have to make the other inferior or threatening or scary or dangerous or murderous in some way. Primitive basically, or not fully human. Transylvania was conquered by the Romans, then it was conquered by the Goths. It was part of the Hanik, the Han Empire and many others, and finally the Hungarians. And in 1690, it became part of the Habsburg monarchy. So the Habsburg of course ruling Austrian-Hungarian empire and becomes part of their huge empire. And then of course Romania, and becomes Romania after World War II.

But it’s always seen as this land beyond the forest. And if you read the ancient Romans, even that’s from the Roman phrase, beyond the forest. And the guy, the Emperor Triton trust him of fortune, and was a very bloody war, but anyway, he was the Roman who conquered Romania, the name. This is the actor Lugosi as count Dracula, we can’t forget his account. So that’s why for me, he sets it there, and the novels written in the 1890s, why he chooses Transylvania, and it has become totally associated with the land of vampires. And it’s a land of mystery, on the one hand of mystery and magic and strangeness and otherness, primitive, all these qualities murderous and bloodsucking, literally sucking the blood out of the civilised nations of the world. It’s narrated to all these ways of diaries that are mentioned. And tells the story of a young lawyer who goes there to deal with the affairs of this mysterious Roman count. There he is. It’s the classic image of Dracula. This act is one in this image here. And what it’s not only about the outside or the other, I think, it’s also, how the other is going to come and corrupt the Victorian womanhood. Women are going to be corrupted, they’re going to be seduced and wooed by the outsider other, but he’s a count, he’s not in soldier, he’s not even a general, he’s a count who is a vampire who sucks blood lives at night, all these fantastical stories. But he’s going to come and take the white woman of the empire possibly or corrupt at least, and threaten the heart of empire itself. You know, it comes back, the sea comes back to the host country. And his tale puts together myth and scientific ideas. He’s trying to put it all together in this image of Dracula, similar to what Mary Shelley did with “Frankenstein.”

It’s a preoccupation with sexuality or obviously the story of Dracula, sucking blood and sex and sexuality, and a kind of moral frailty back in the empire’s homeland is a sexual ambivalence in Dracula himself. This isn’t necessarily a picture of a macho man or a soldier, as I said, or a general, any of the classic heroic figures. Even the heroic dark figures, the evil leaders if you like. It’s an individual who’s a bat, I mean it’s ridiculous, and it’s a remarkable achievement of his imagination. There’s political and social neurosis and anxieties in the Victorian England of his time. Underneath the almost granite sense of power of empire. And then of course, there’s a hint of association of the impurities of blood and race in the myth. And that to me is really interesting because that echoes way back to ancient times way through to the 20th century, nationhood, blood and race, let’s never forget it. And the hell that has visited on the human race at large. Is it anything to do with Bram Stoker’s insecurity with his Irish heritage, and yet trying so hard to fit into English culture, become an English, almost an English noble himself? Is there that sense of where to belong, sense of his own fault lines and an ambivalence in his identity? It’s fascinating, we speculate, we can’t know for sure. Is there the fear of rivers of blood literally coming in, to use Carl’s phrase, to dilute British empire identity, an empire identity of any empire. Because together with the grand achievements and conquest and remarkable adventure and discoveries and changes of imperial expansion comes the shadow, comes the dark side. 'Cause what happens if those conquered decide to come back to the host country? Uh-oh, bit of a problem. Always the paradox, and that’s in a great myth.

Back to Icarus, “Yes, fly, be free, my son. Fly up high, escape the prison of this maze.” Says the father, Daedalus. “But Icarus be aware, don’t go too close to the sun because your wings are made of wax, they’ll melt in your quest.” So there’s always the paradox in for me, powerful myths. And Dracula has this savagery, love, religion, technology, xenophobia, all of these things, otherness. And of course it can only happen after dark, all linked to blackness, darkness at night. You know, that’s a pretty obvious part of the myth. And what’s fascinating when you read the book is that the whole first part of it is Israelian exercise in creating dread. I remember Steven Spielberg said he would not show the shark in “Jaws” for at least the first 15 to 20 minutes, and then maybe, hold it, hold it back, hold it back, and then show the shark. It’s brilliant of Spielberg to wait until then. You know, as we see in “ET” and other forms as well. He knows when to release the dread and give us audience relief. And the same with Stoker, Bram Stoker, the whole first part of the book is just building up, the dread. And then we realise, as the main characters, as Jonathan realises in the character in the book that his host ain’t quite human, not quite the goody guy, he’s evil, he’s inhuman. So the paranoia creeps up on us more and more, the fear all through the main character, Jonathan’s cracking psyche. And of course he’d dread Frankenstein and many others he would’ve known. Let’s remember the story of Jack the Ripper, the ancient, et cetera. And what’s fascinating is that the Shakespearean actor, Henry Irving, the one that he worked for, Stoker gave him, he first wrote it as a play, and he said, “Please, act.” and gave it.

And Irving read it, and he thought, “Oh, well, silver tongue aristocrat, look at the figure and so on.” And Irving gave it straight back to him and said, “No way, this is not a play. I can’t act this. I love Shakespeare’s villains, but not something a bloodsucking feature like this. I’m not going to do it.” Which is a true story. And that’s when he chose to turn it from a play to a novel. Let’s remember, he’s also writing of his own time, a literary culture obsessed with crime, ghosts, horror stories, all steeped in exotic sensation and jeopardy. This Rider Haggard’s book of 1886, “She.” There’s Robert Louis Stevenson, “Jekyll and Hyde.” In 1886, Oscar Wilde, “Picture of Dorian Grey.” These are the literature of the times of Gothic horror, but internal looking and internal questioning. “Jekyll and Hyde” is brilliant. And not only because for me it captures something a fault line in the psyche of at the height of imperialism, which is fascinating that linked to me. Victorian celebrated empire. The sun would never set, jubilees, golden Jubilee. 1887, diamond jubilee. 1897, more and more jubilees celebration, the never ending power of empire, the sun weren’t set. But there are threats from all over. To that perception, it always has to be the paradox or the shadow. And of course, the great invasion threats through the novel, HG Wells, “The War of the Worlds” 1897. So it’s all of this is part of not only invasion literature, but cracking of the psyche somewhere in the host country.

Fascinating to me. Even recently in Birmingham there was a newspaper article about empire and people, somebody going around at night and fighting other people, and how families were terrified, community leaders, schools. And this is a quote from the newspaper, this is just about a year ago, “As the sun dips below the rooftops of sleepy terrace streets, residents rush home, gathering children because after night falls, a vampire hungry for blood stalks. Reports of a Dracula-style attacker on the loose, biting innocent people has spread terror through the neighbourhoods.” I mean this is a journalist going hyperbolic and going ridiculous, but feeling okay, it’s part parody, it’s part kitsch it’s part satire, but it’s also striking a chord of a bit of fear. So all of these today of the, you know… What’s interesting is that image still exists even just as the recent years, a year ago in the city here in England. Vampires were obviously part of the rural England folklore of the 18th century going into the 19th century. And the word bloodsucker is fascinating 'cause it was originally, about bloodsuckers were regarded as primitive inarticulate peasants in the home country who attacked sheep and cows as often as their relatives. That was the phrase for the meaning of the word bloodsuckers. Of course, Byron changed it all when he and Mary Shelley, and Shelley the poet get together in on the Lake Geneva. And he suggested to the guests, “Let’s all write a horror story.”

And Mary Shelley invents the ghost story of Frankenstein, et cetera. And that’s when it all starts to change with Byron’s poetic imagination. And of course they’re talking about ghost stories trying to imagine and other if you like a myth for it all. Okay, so this is here I want to show just very quickly now, this is Vlad the Impaler who lived in the castle of the original… Where Stoker’s researched, and Vlad the Impaler who lived in the late 1500s was seen as a pretty ruthless and brutal count or leader or semi king if you like, but he was seen as brutal and did skewer people on pikes. But according to the stories that he only did it against people who were trying to attack the area that he controlled. He didn’t do it that much to his own people. So he was regarded as something of a hero amongst his own people and pretty evil and brutal against others. So this is the original Vlad, which Stoker would’ve researched and would’ve read about and gone into quite a bit of detail of the original Vlad the Impaler as he was called in Romania. Now this is going to surprise everyone. This is the Abbey at Whitby on the coast of England. We couldn’t get a more picturesque, beautiful picture of England with a little boats. And there’s the Abbey at the back, lovely, ordinary sedate image of a Abbey going way back in time and the ruins, the remains of the Abbey. This is the Abbey that influenced Bram Stoker. And I’m going to show how he turned that into a myth. Looking, 'cause this is where he went to research, this is where he went to holiday and relax, and Irving encouraged him in fact and others. And this was the inspiration for what became the castle. the count, all the research that he was doing.

This became the physical space that Abbey on an ordinary good summer’s day, obviously, that’s the Abbey. It looks pretty banal, pretty interesting, like a ruin, you know, we could imagine going and seeing it. How to make myth as an artist from this? Got closer, this is the Abbey, the remains of the Abbey. So he would’ve gone here which he did definitely, and researched and looked and seen. “How can I turn this in my imagination to a castle in Transylvania that I’m going to put the count in, vampires, and Draculas and all the rest of it inside.” As Picasso said, when I look at a tree and paint a tree, I don’t see a tree. I see colour, shape, and angle. So the artist’s imagination, taking something as ordinary as a tree, but seeing colour, shape, and angle can transform it into something so different, inspired by the reality, turn it into a fictional mythical image, if you like, an act of the imaginative artist. So from this Abbey, this is the same Abbey here, this is coloured by an artist. We start to get a different shape of coloured shape, angle, shadows. We start to get a slightly different sense. Can imagine Bram stoker’s imagination, looking as its banal picture, golden new picture of a ruin of the Abbey. And start to imagine it with different colours. Start to see it maybe as a castle, a Dracula and so on. And this year it’s exactly the same Abbey, how to turn something from ordinary history in the autistic imagination into something extraordinary. A myth begins and he starts to understand how to make a myth, how to change it and create it. Next to this Abbey, there’s a church, and the church of course has got a graveyard. And in his artistic imagination, perhaps he sees something like this.

This is artistry, this is from the actual Abbey at Whitby and it’s turned here in the graveyard. We see some of these gravestones and how it’s been changed and transformed here. This is Bran Castle in Transylvania, which has become a site of tourism today, but is it linked? Was did Stoker know of this exact castle? We are not sure. But anyway, in tourist terms, this is the castle that thousand so many people go and visit. The myth has become almost a kitsch reality, it’s gone all the way, and this is a castle. And we can see it in the ordinariness and the top left in grey. We can see it transformed, different painting, different colours, different shapes, different lighting till we get the picture of the bottom right. And we can imagine arriving there at night and the bottom right or arriving there in the daytime. It can change, not any according to day and night, but the artistic or just the literary imagination of a Bram Stoker or whoever writing it or painting. This is Bran Castle on a beautiful summer’s day where we can see the castle down at the bottom, the hills around it and it seems far less threatening. It just seems, well this is a pretty little castle in the middle of the of Transylvania. Why not? It’s nice. They’re the hills and all the rest of it. What’s strange? What’s scary? Nothing. Ridiculous. But in someone like stoker’s imagination, we can start to change it.

This is the same castle in the last picture Bran Castle in Transylvania. So we can, obviously, we know how powerful the imagination, we can take any of the stories and make myth. We can take thunder and lightning, make a myth of Zeus. We can take the sea, make a myth of of Poseidon, we can take a garden, put a serpent, an apple, put two figures called Adam and Eve. And so we go on and on. We can create a round table, call it Camelot, Arthur, Excalibur, et cetera. We can change it and become a myth, but what’s powerful is that they’re not just stories, they’re stories which express the traditions and express something deep-rooted in the times and in the culture’s tradition that it becomes part of the makeup, if you like, of the culture’s traditions. And I think why has “Dracula,” why has the vampire story become part of the tradition of our times? And I’ve tried to give a sense of how I think it links to Bram Stoker’s times. And I think by extension, we find resonances in our own times. So this is coming at Transylvania from a completely different perspective and myths and legends from a completely different perspective. I’m going to hold it there. Okay, thank you. Okay, we can take some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Hannah, we’re waiting for the background curtain to go up. Yes. And it’s going to go up on stage, it’s going to be stories and kitsch and all that.

Okay, then, Virginia “In a saw pit, the underdog worked the saw from below, a very unpleasant position, far better to be the top dog.” Thank you for that, Virginia. Appreciate.

Okay, Rita, “I was about to post the hyperlink to run on bots book mythologies.” Ah, okay, thank you. It’s a fascinating book because he’s trying to find, as you saying here, steak and chips is a mythology, soap, powder, almost soap, whatever. The contemporary versions of how myths are made in our culture today. What I love is the connection between myth, history, and kitsch. Because myths become kitsch at a certain point and then you know, they’ll lose their power in a culture.

Q: Margaret, “Was Transylvania actually a part of Hungary?”

A: I’m going to have to check with the historians. I don’t want to give you an answer and then I might be wrong, but I will check it, thank you.

Naomi, “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell, brilliant. Joseph Campbell’s book is I think fantastic. “'The Hero With a Thousand Faces,’ and ‘The Power of Myth,’ it’s all coming from the Jungian idea.” Exactly, Naomi. Thank you. Yeah, and there’s the interview with Bill Moyers Alice, “I think he’s Count Alucard which spells Dracula backwards.” Yeah, and also it goes back to a Latin word as well, Dracula and others there, but there’s there’s evidence of how Bram Stoker specifically finally came up with a word Dracula, and where we got the name from? Betty, “ ” symbol of power, the ability of the church, yep.

Julian, “Interesting that the colour two slides ago almost looked like a bat in itself.” Exactly, you’re right, thank you for that. It’s trying to show the wings of the bat. But the important thing I think is that his account, he’s an nobleman. That’s what’s interesting to me. He’s an aristocrat, he’s not an ordinary guy or an upstart made good. He’s part of the the aristocratic nobility, the power and the leadership.

Jack, “What about the use of red?”

The Catholic hierarchy, great, thank you.

Sarah, “Thanks about myth culture, the dangers when it goes too far.” Yep. “Appropriate for the situation in Israel. Last week, I missed PF, this week thanks to COVID.” Oh, but I hope you feel better Sarah from COVID. Sorry to hear you have it, nightmare.

Monte, “America’s obsessed with a fear of the other, McCarthyism, Hollywood movies, fear of aliens, fear of zombies, fear of things. Yeah, in the woods, invasion of suburbia, that abnormal, "Rosemary’s Baby.” Monte, I agree completely, but I think not only America, I think every culture is obsessed. It almost has to be. ‘Cause to believe that one’s own culture is good or mostly good, mostly beneficial, or mostly helping each other or mostly doing something we all want to be part of, we’ve got to believe other cultures are a little bit inferior or not quite as good maybe, often I think. So, I don’t think it’s only America, I think it’s any culture or subculture group.

Richard, “You tell us please the myth of Icarus and Dead Alice.” I don’t know Dead Alice. Richard needs some help there.

Janet “Red is the colour of communism.” Of course as well. Yes. “The mineral jet, which is jet black, the traditional to Whitby Bay.” Okay, I didn’t know that. That’s great, thank you, fascinating. The endless connections between red and black, obviously, black is maybe more obvious but red obviously with blood ultimately.

Q: Julian, “Any chance the lost but rediscovered manuscript could be published so the public could see the difference between his 500 page version in the final one?”

A: Well, as far as I know Paul Allen bought it and as far as I know still has it, and this is given it away somewhere or sold it, I don’t know. So we’d have to ask Microsoft, I guess, or Paul Allen.

Rita, thank you. Yeah, I think it’s about, exactly, Rita. For me it’s a fascinating link between stories and mythologies, and how the two are totally linked as foundational belief systems in a society and later of course they become kitsch, but it’s that link, and cultures have to have it. We have to believe in it.

Joanne, “It’s interesting to note that the leeches,” yes leeches “were treatment for ailments in Ireland and many countries.” Bloodsucking, bloodletting, yep, it’s fascinating.

Q: Stan, “Did Bram Stoker write other?”

A: Yeah, he wrote a lot of other books, Stan. Some quite a lot of other fictional books, but none of them took off. This was his smash hit. And it became such a smash hit in his times, made him a fortune of money which is part of his intention. And he spent six years researching and writing it, and he cracked it in the end. Got it, got it all spot on.

Q: David. “Did Stoker make money?”

A: Yes, it was a smash hit. Let’s remember, this is the times when these kind of stories are very popular, people are reading. It’s towards the end of the 19th century, so obviously before all visual medias, so it’s reading and books and an increasingly literate society able to read.

Romaine, “Myth as paradox. Not sure, but is it not fairly simple, but effective presentation of hope versus disaster is not a paradox.” That’s a fascinating point, Romaine. I think that when myth is paradoxical, it always contains the good and the bad, the shadowy darker side and the lighter side and tries to resist being simplified. I think the Arian myths for me is the ultimate horrific example of an extreme myth, absolutely simplified. And it just becomes goody and baddy right and wrong. Arian equals master, all the rest of it, the rest are subhuman, et cetera. Myth taken to an insane extreme, and I think that’s when it loses the paradoxical element, when it loses complex meanings and becomes simplistic. For people who really believe Garden of Eden and that’s it, there’s nothing else. It becomes simplistic, a belief, and you cannot discuss any other worldview as to the origin of the earth or humans.

Q: Okay, Rita, “Would you consider Dracula as a precursor to eugenics and scientific racism?”

A: Well, I think that’s what I was trying to allude to. Yes. And it starts with Frankenstein, with Mary Shelley and others that it’s all part of… if you like the shadow darker side of I think scientific endeavours and the scientific rational of the 19th century. I think Dracula is part of that whole meilleur, of that whole era of the triumph of science, the attempted triumph of science and rationalism of the enlightenment, which then of course the flip side smashes completely.

Julian, “Surely, 'Jekyll and Hyde’ and ‘Frankenstein’ large part also reflecting fears of the power of science.” Yes. And also the power of what the unconscious human, so this is exactly what young would say. The unconscious human self would be if released undiluted without the conscience intended by God. Yes, Dracula could be added to the letter, yes. This is exactly the unconscious or the collective unconsciousness. Exactly, the Jungian interpretation, Julian, thank you. That it’s all part of the underbelly, if you like, the shadowy underbelly of scientific rationalist view of the world.

Sharon, “Several years ago, while travelling through Transylvania, visited Bran Castle.” That’s amazing, Sharon, home of Vlad the Impaler, the son of Dragon, supposed home of Count Dracula.

Q: “Vlad is considered to be a national hero in Romania?”

A: Absolutely.

“Although he was brutal, sadistic, he tortured his foes an appropriate source for Dracula.” Absolutely, Sharon. But what’s fascinating is that he tortured very few of his own people, apparently, very few of his own people, mainly very brutal. He literally skewed them on pikes, which is obviously maybe why Bram Stoker used it. He skewed them on pikes as the Romans did on, you know, cut the head and put their head on top of pike. So it was an image which is terrifying. Something terrifying about the neck and the head cut.

Celine, “Today, 2023, modern Dracula upgraded would be made to prefer to certain blood types and DNAs.” Interesting, fascinating, Celine.

Marion, “About the blood libel myth of the Jews needing the blood of Christian children.” Yes. Fantastic point, Marion. I didn’t think of it. You’re absolutely right. The blood libel myth of Jews from the accusations of killing Christian children. It’s bloodsucking again.

Sandy “Are the mysteries of blood, menstrual blood.” Yes.

“Birth magic, draining, so the meat could be kosher, blood liable.” This is fascinating, we can go on. That’s why I say it’s such a flexible myth because it can have so many resonant meanings. Even today when it’s… To me a large part of it could be seen as kitsch, but it’s so resonant from the colour of the costume, the red and the black, the blood, the idea of the… Yeah, all these ideas come into one myth and I think it’s the power of a myth that lasts.

Gene, “To God to myths, we were on the lowest slopes of Mount Olympus in Greece.” Fantastic. Where one hears repetitive thunder but no changes in weather pattern. Easy to imagine how the early Greeks could explain it about believing in Zeus. It’s a great, fantastic point, thank you. For them, it was real. They could absolutely… This is fantastic, Gene, thank you.

Janet, “I think the jet from Whitby was used for Victorian mourning jewellery.” Thank you. That’s great.

Richard. “Indeed, amazing. Huge number of these stories have only to deal with evil and destruction and death.” I can think only the manmade monster in “Frankenstein,” the “Invaders from Outer Space,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Yep, rescue and goodness. All of these come together, “Star Wars,” all of them come together in contemporary versions of these old myths, old stories.

Paula, “Dracula was written a few years after Jack the Ripper murders, which was in an immigrant section of London.” That’s fantastic to know. Thank you, Paula. That’s fantastic.

Q: “Recently, the Sinai Free Synagogue Film Society discussed whether Dracula represents invasion literature. Is it anti-Semitic? Is Lugosi’s medallion a Star of David?”

A: This is really interesting. Thank you. This is incredible. This is why lockdown is incredible. Paula, thank you, this is fascinating. You know, is it anti-Semitic? Is it background material? Is there Star of David in Lugosi’s costume? That’s really interesting. Much appreciated.

Sharon, “On Netflix now, the Ottoman Empire dramatisation of the battle between Mehmed II and Vlad the Impaler.” Ah, okay, great. What timing? This is Dracula-esque in timing.

Miriam, “Thank you kindly.”

Myrna, QAnon, my God. Perfect example from mystery reality. And millions believing, millions buying into QAnon and many other fake nonsense. And QAnon itself becoming, if you like, a mythical phenomenon almost. A completely fictional piece of nonsense becoming myth. It’s a fantastic example, Myrna, thank you.

Q: Jones, “My father was Transylvanian. Do you think the Nazis were so Nazi Jews because of Stoker?”

A: Your father was Transylvanian. That’s really interesting, Jones, thank you. I don’t know, I mean, I didn’t want to bring the Nazis in here, rather just stick with the story of Stoker and Dracula for this particular moment, because I think otherwise we can make too many simplistic connections. Rather, look at Romania in relation to the Holocaust, and through Elie Wiesel, and other individuals in history.

Catherine, “You share my view that Mervyn Peake was influenced by myth and romance, the Gothic castle.” Yes. I think that all writers. And got TS Eliot “The Wasteland” influenced by James Frazer’s book “The Golden Bough,” which is also all around these times being written. I think that absolutely that all writers, artists, they are obsessed with myth and mythic and stories and myths and they used all the time. I mean, James Joyce’s “Ulysses” called “Ulysses,” the ancient Greek, it said so many. I think because there are stories and have become myths in the tradition that writers and artists become obsessed by them because they say something about the culture which the writer lives, Catherine.

Yeah, Mervyn Peake and many others, “Game of Throne,” so many of these series.

Maria, “Yes, Transylvania was part of the Austria-Hungarian monarchy.” Great. Thank you. Maria “It was taken away in the Versailles Treaty, which many Hungarians lament to this day.” Thank you. Fascinating. Let’s all lament to that.

Q: Ina, “What was Banat in the map? Is it Bulgaria?”

A: It might be. I don’t have to check it. Thanks.

Sandra, the myth of Jews, Christian blood, yeah, to make matzo, yep.

Lorna, thank you. QAnon, I think it’s becoming a myth. Complete fictional nonsense again, but it’s serving the function of the invader within the evil, with the telling the stories of the invader inside or the invader outside has got to be the invader metaphor in any culture, I think.

Elaine, “Daedalus, the father of Icarus.” Yep.

Maria, oh, Dead Alice, okay. Okay. Thank you, Maria. Dead Alice is Daedalus. Got you. That’s great. I love the wit and the kitsch.

Maya, “I’m from Bucharest.” The only thing the USA and the European people knew about was Transylvania and Dracula, and it all comes from one guy’s imagination. Six years researching the Whitby Abbey researching Eastern European and and finding Transylvania to come up with a vampire story to make a big buck. Absolutely. Thank you, Maya. Eva.

Margaret, “Transylvania was an area belonged to Hungary and Romania.” Thank you. Germans, Hungarians, Romanians. Diane, “I visited Dracula’s castle, 2000, found natural surrounding beauty. The defeating of being trapped because of the mountainous region. One of the story would be set at a seaside castle.” Yeah, I think very different. I think Bram Stoker needed that sense of the castle trapped and the visitor going into a foreign strange land. Marilyn, Daedalus was the father of Icarus, yep.

Yep, “Don’t fly too close to sun ‘cause your wings are made of wax.” That’s the paradox in the story. Marilyn, “Icarus ignores.” Yep.

Cynthia, Icarus and Daedalus. Yep Thank you, Romaine. Yeah, the more simple, the greater the danger.

Lena, “Is a great remake of Werner Dracula.” Oh, the Werner Dracula film Nosferatu. Yes. Fantastic. And the Herzog one, Nosferatu. Fantastic. Thank you.

Monica, “I was born in Romania. Nobody spoke of Dracula, but Vlad the Impaler.” Yes, that’s really interesting 'cause then we are looking at it from the eyes of Romania where it would be a totally different impression.

Rita, “Mel Brooks 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It.’” I know, I was so tempted to show some of it. In 1995, Gothic comedy horror film as a spoof of, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s very funny. Mel Brooks.

Romaine, thank you. Yeah, I think the more simplistic the myth becomes, the more fanatical the interpretation and the take up. So because it becomes natural, it’s seen as natural, it’s not seen as a mythical story expressing belief. So do all myths turn simplistic or kitsch? I think in the end they become kitsch. If they become so simplified becomes kitsch.

Q: Define kitsch.

A: When the story becomes two-dimensional, goodies and baddies, simple right and wrong, and there’s no, and that’s it. It becomes dangerous and it becomes afterwards kitsch.

Sandra, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” yes.

Richard, “Dead Alice.” Got it. Thank you, Richard. I’m a bit slow today.

Julian, “Complete stretch. You’ve mentioned your Dracula’s rejection of the church be linked to the Jews rejection of Jesus.” I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe, I don’t know. I mean, it is important that at the end it’s the cross and Christ that frightens Dracula because Christ is comes back, returns from the dead. The undead comes back to resurrected, so that’s why Dracula is scared. I don’t know about the link to the Jews, but it’s interesting.

Roberto, “Bram in numerology is a seven meaning perceptive, et cetera. Hands up to anyone who know someone called Bram, my one year old grandson.” Is that short for Abraham? Because his name was Abraham. Abraham’s so good. Congratulations on your grandson.

Paula, “Concerning the previous comment Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda represented Jews as bats in vampires.” Yes, they took the bloodsucking idea probably from blood libel and all the other things. But sucking the blood out of the nation. It’s so literal but effective. Terrifyingly fanatical.

Sandice. Yeah, Bram is from Abraham.

Monica “But Nazi is now Romania, Serbian-Hungary.” Thank you, Joan. Thank you, Paula.

Hitler spoke of Jews as vampires in my… Yep.

Marion, “Transylvania means other side of the woods.” Thank you, that’s great. Yeah, that goes way back to the Romans beyond the forest from the ancient Latin. Jean, thank you.

Edith PF. Sing your hands while she sang “Padam.” It’s an amazing song. “I didn’t want Dracula’s visions.” Go back to PF, we’ll see the kitsch in Dracula. Jean, great.

Joy, “I have a tree which shows the King Charles is descended from Vlad the Impaler.” That’s amazing. King Charles descended from Vlad the Impaler. That would make it a fantastic story.

Julian, “The start of the ‘90s, Dracula rejects the church.” Yep, stabbing the cross, the blood of Jesus, yeah. I think Stoker had to bring in Christianity and he puts it all together in the story, por puebla.

Julian, “Incidentally, presumably, which he feeds on to become immortal.” Yes, 'cause he’s got to become immortal in a different way to Christ, that’s the connection.

Okay. Great. So thank you so much everybody. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend.